The Musical Comedy Crime

de Anthony Gilbert

A murder mystery featuring Anthony Gilbert's Liberal politician-detective Scott Egerton. It began with the theatre - and ended with drugs, blackmail and a decades old crime... Major John Hillier, a well-known clubman, is found dead in his flat in Upper Paulton Terrace early one morning in rather peculiar circumstances. The discovery is made by a servant, upon whom a certain amount of suspicion falls. Inspector Field traces the dead man’s movements on the previous night and learns that, after breaking up a dinner-party in a somewhat unconventional fashion, he travelled some distance to a remote suburban theatre to see a leading lady whom he cannot even identify by sight. Following up certain clues and deductions of his own, Field discovers the reason for this strange course of action, and tracing back the dead man’s history over a number of years, finds himself entangled in a nest of underworld intrigue in England and on the Continent. Drugs, blackmail and a crime many years old all play their part in an affair that, starting without sensation, attains universal attention. The congruent parts of the mystery are finally put together by Field and Scott Egerton, who, entering the case late in its development, is able to supply the final link.